


you got a lot of heart

by Ester



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Idols, Insomnia, M/M, still irredeemable fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27690422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ester/pseuds/Ester
Summary: Chan’s accustomed to moving quietly around the dorm. He knows where the floor will creak and what corners he’s most likely to catch an elbow or a toe on. He knows the exact amount of pressure needed to turn on the kitchen tap so that the water flows out quietly. And still, when he comes back to the living room, there’s a sleepy boy huddled in a comically thick duvet, glaring accusingly at Chan, eyes puffy with sleep and bleached hair fanning in every cardinal direction.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix
Comments: 14
Kudos: 204





	you got a lot of heart

**Author's Note:**

> don't look at me.  
> the title is from the killers' "be still".

Chan’s brain is never quiet, it feels like. It’s always humming, always planning, always preparing for something; the worst, usually. If it’s not planning, it’s predicting: all the ways everything they’ve scraped together could fail, all the people who could ruin them, all the things Chan has forgotten to account for. The only way to keep the noise down and to keep laying new track in front of the speeding train is to keep busy. Fortunately, there’s always something to do. Something more to add to a song, a new sentence to write down for a new set of lyrics, an email to send to the company, a question to find an answer to, a scheduled event to prepare for, a member to worry about, an argument to resolve.

Sleeping is hard when your brain is never quiet. That’s why Chan prefers to keep going until he physically can’t; until the track stops, and the train hits the wall, and sleep comes like an anvil over the head. But right now, it’s only half-past four in the morning – he’s still at least half an hour, probably an hour, away from the breaking point. So, he pads across the quiet living room, where he’s set up his night time office in order to make sure Felix can sleep through the night in their shared bedroom, and goes to fill his glass of water from the kitchen.

Chan’s accustomed to moving quietly around the dorm. He knows where the floor will creak and what corners he’s most likely to catch an elbow or a toe on. He knows the exact amount of pressure needed to turn on the kitchen tap so that the water flows out quietly. And still, when he comes back to the living room, there’s a sleepy boy huddled in a comically thick duvet, glaring accusingly at Chan, eyes puffy with sleep and bleached hair fanning in every cardinal direction. 

“You have to sleep now,” Felix tells him, squinting through the bags under his eyes, “This is stupid.” His voice is a soft rumble, barely English. Everything about him is soft, Chan thinks, as he sets down his glass of water and comes closer. Felix looks like he needs some petting - fluffed and upset like a startled cat. Chan pats Felix’s hair down and away from his forehead, hard enough that, caught off guard and sleep-loose, Felix sways under his touch. A little hand snakes out from between the duvet folds and tries to slap Chan’s hand away. Chan traps his wrist easily, pushes it down, but leaves the hair alone, too.

“Did I wake you?” he asks, taking hold of the duvet around what he thinks is Felix’s waist, and walking him towards the couch, “I’ve been super quiet.”

“Yes,” Felix says. He’s a very bad liar, especially when he’s half-asleep. “Nah,” he amends a second later, “But I woke up and saw the light under the door.” He goes down easy under Chan’s guidance, folds onto the couch like an overstuffed mascot. He peers up at Chan. His eyes seem endless. “I’m putting a stop to this.”

“Good for you,” Chan nods and sits down next to him, fixes the angle of his laptop, and leans over to offer Felix a sip from his glass, “Thirsty?”

Felix narrows his eyes at Chan, suspicious, but accepts the glass. It’s funny watching him drink, while he tries to hold on to the duvet. Like a soft little mouse with tiny little mouse hands.

It’s possible Chan is very tired.

“You can’t distract me,” Felix tells him, handing back the glass, “I’m awake and determined to fix you.”

“Mhm, sure. Hey, listen to this, while you’re at it,” Chan says and wraps an arm around him, pulling him closer and in better view of the laptop. He starts up a piano file, a simple one-hand melody up and down the fourth octave he recorded yesterday in the hopes that with time and a heap of bass it could become something special. Now, in a plain C minor, it sounds a little longing and a lot bare.

Felix tilts his head to rest on Chan’s shoulder. His hair smells like minty shampoo. Maybe a lot longing.

The melody lasts only around two minutes, repeating parts again and again, a couple of faltering notes. Felix stays quiet throughout, and his breathing gets slower and deeper, sleepier and sleepier.

“I like it,” he says at the end, quietly, half-gone already, “Sounds loving.”

“Good, it was meant to.”

“You’re very good at that,” Felix says, after a moment’s pause, like he’s taken the time to evaluate something or maybe just dozed off for a blink.

“What, piano?”

“Love,” Felix corrects him, nudging Chan’s shoulder with his head, “You’re good at love.”

Chan absolutely does not feel like he’s good at love. He’s good at thinking about it, about how it fills up every crevice of him. There’s love for so many things in him, constantly, that it feels like it just adds a new layer of noise in the cacophony in his head. Love for his family and his friends and his members and the music they get to do and the places they get to see and the acknowledgement of their work and the people they get to work with and the dorm they get to share and the fans who love them back so much. And, and, and. There’s so much of it, always, that he doesn’t know what to do with it. How to hold it and nurture it and give it back so that it feels like enough in return for something so big.

“Well,” Chan says.

The thing about staying awake until you physically can’t is that it tears down a lot of walls between thought and action. The self-critical part of you dies somewhere around two in the morning. Afterwards, it’s all just unchecked emotion.

“You are very easy to love.”

Chan doesn’t see Felix smile, but he feels his cheek bunch up faintly against the ball of his shoulder.

“I think you’re delirious,” Felix mumbles, so nearly slipping under right there. Chan cannot accept any outs from the hole he’s midway through digging. Talking to Felix is always so easy. Deceptively so, addictingly so. He seems to possess a never-ending well of patience and understanding and acceptance of whatever Chan throws his way. It makes Chan want to tell him everything. Anything. 

He watches the top of Felix’s adored head loll a little against Chan’s shoulder as sleep claims him again. Instead of saying _I loved you the day I met you_ , he presses a hand over Felix to keep him in place and leans back against the sofa so that Felix doesn’t have to sleep hunched forward.

Chan’s brain is never quiet. But listening to Felix doze next to him, his weight solid against Chan’s side and the ends of his hair tickling at Chan’s jaw, it’s not quite so loud, either. He’s not sure when exhaustion catches up to him, but when it comes, this time around, it feels less like an anvil and more a caress.

**Author's Note:**

> it's nearing 2 am right now for me. i don't know anything.


End file.
